CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Gorlice it runs 455 km to Gorlice; allow about 9 h 08 of riding. It goes by way of Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less, Levoča, Dobšinská Ice Cave and Component of Plešivec plateau. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Poland into Slovakia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. Open plateau country, wide and exposed.
The wooden church in Sękowa is small, dark and quietly astonishing. It stands on a slope in the Beskid Niski, the low and thickly wooded mountains of south-eastern Poland, and dates from the early sixteenth century, with a steep shingled roof, a tower with a pointed top and a gallery running around the walls. The timber has gone almost black with age, and inside the walls and ceiling are painted with colourful flowers, figures and scenes of faith from the seventeenth century. It is one of the wooden churches of southern Małopolska listed by UNESCO in 2003, and unlike a museum piece, it is still used for services.
Read the complete Church of St Philip and St James the Apost write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Church of St Philip and St James the Apost is where the day begins. Next is Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less.
Hidden among the hills of the Beskid Sądecki, close to the Slovak border in southern Poland, the little wooden church at Powroźnik is one of the oldest of its kind still standing in the country. Its oldest parts date from around 1600, and it belongs to the group of wooden tserkvas of the Carpathian region listed by UNESCO in 2013. A tserkva is an Eastern-rite church, and this one was built by the Lemkos, the Rusyn highlanders who farmed these valleys for centuries until most were forcibly resettled after the Second World War. Today it serves as a Catholic church, but the shape tells its origin story at once: a tower with a bulging onion-like cap, stepped shingle roofs and dark timber walls weathered almost black.
Read the complete Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less comes up about 52 km into the recorded legs. Next is Levoča.
Spread across a ridge in eastern Slovakia, with the jagged peaks of the High Tatras rising on the northern horizon, the Spiš region holds one of Europe's great clusters of medieval monuments. The town of Levoča, the old regional capital, was a wealthy royal free town, and its walls, burgher houses and Renaissance town hall still surround a long central square. Inside the church of St James stands Master Paul of Levoča's carved Gothic altarpiece, finished in the early sixteenth century and the tallest of its kind in the world, an astonishing tower of limewood saints and filigree.
Read the complete Levoča write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 122 km into the recorded legs you reach Levoča. Next is Dobšinská Ice Cave.
Step out of a warm summer day into the Dobšinská Ice Cave and the temperature drops to just below freezing within a few metres. The cave, on the northern edge of the Slovak Paradise in eastern Slovakia, holds a vast mass of ice, tens of thousands of cubic metres, with frozen floors, walls and columns that have built up over thousands of years. It was explored in 1870 by Eugen Ruffinyi, opened to visitors soon after, and became one of the first caves in Europe to be lit by electricity. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Caves of Aggtelek Karst and Slovak Karst, shared with Hungary.
Read the complete Dobšinská Ice Cave write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dobšinská Ice Cave, about halfway. Next is Component of Plešivec plateau.
The Slovak Karst is a world of limestone plateaus and deep gorges in southern Slovakia, along the Hungarian border, and the Plešivec plateau is one of its great tablelands, a high, flat-topped block of rock rising steeply above the valleys of the Slaná and the Štítnik rivers. Its surface is a rolling steppe of grass and scrub, pitted with sinkholes, and beneath it lies a maze of caves and abysses, part of the UNESCO site of the Caves of Aggtelek Karst and Slovak Karst.
Read the complete Component of Plešivec plateau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Component of Plešivec plateau sits at 188 km, about halfway. Next is back through Dobšinská Ice Cave.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dobšinská Ice Cave write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Dobšinská Ice Cave comes up about 274 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Levoča.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Levoča write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 332 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Levoča. Next is back through Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less, late in the day. Next is Church of St Philip and St James the Apost.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Church of St Philip and St James the Apost write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 455 km.
Church of St Philip and St James the Apost → Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less → Levoča is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Levoča → Dobšinská Ice Cave is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dobšinská Ice Cave → Component of Plešivec plateau is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Component of Plešivec plateau → back through Dobšinská Ice Cave is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Dobšinská Ice Cave → back through Levoča is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Levoča → back through Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less → Church of St Philip and St James the Apost is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.